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Formatting new hard drive

Evening everyone...This post is a variation of a previous post in the hardware discussion board and I didn't know if it would be helpful to put part of the question here as well. I'll apologize in advance if I am asking too vague, difficult to understand questions or if it is not approriate to seek help in this way. I have a computer built by a friend who cant work on it anymore b/c of a recent move. I currently have a 4 gig hard drive and want to replace it with a 41.1 gig ( 40 gig? ) Hitachi Deskstar 7K80 model #HDS728040PLAT20. I am running Windows XP-Home OPS. Finally, once the new drive is physically in the case and hooked up, how do I go about formatting or partioning the new drive ( Cutter ducks and waits to make sure that no one throws anything at him...waiting...waiting ...) I know BIOS is involved but am not sure how to go about it. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks again everyone.

When you first turn on your computer after the drive is installed press Delete to enter the Bios and under the Main or Advanced page check to see that the drive is recognized. If there is a Boot Page in the Bios you can set the machine to boot from the CD Drive there. Press F10 (usually) to save the changes and exit. Your XP disk will do the rest. Just follow the prompts.

Read through those pages and post back if you have any further questions.

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